A Rational Case for COMMON SENSE

Common sense is not majority opinion, but the set of basic convictions needed to think and act. Its discrediting in late modernity has produced a sophisticated form of disorientation.

Common sense. That obvious thing that seems hardly worth mentioning. And yet, as it turns out, lately it needs defending. We are not talking about majority opinion, nor about the prejudices you hear floating around. We are talking about those fundamental ideas, the ones we hold before we start theorizing, without which we could not even think, act or doubt with a minimum of coherence.

That the world outside exists, that other people have their own lives and feel things similar to ours, that the past was real, that things happen for a reason, and that what we see and hear is usually pretty much on target. That is common sense. It does not need to be proven to you first; it is the solid ground on which we build any proof, however complex.

## A Subtle but Constant Attack

The curious thing is that, in the era we happen to live in, common sense has been systematically pushed aside. It has been portrayed as naive, as a relic from before the arrival of science or, worse still, as a hindrance to more "profound" thinking. Philosophies ranging from extreme skepticism to the most radical constructivism, along with the idea that we might be living in a simulation, or the most contemporary nihilism, all share one gesture: calling into question or relativizing those basic certainties of everyday life.

And the result of all this is not greater clarity. Rather, it is a highly elaborate form of disorientation. When you hear phrases like "everything is interpretation," "there are no facts, only stories" or "we probably live in a simulation," what is happening is that the very common sense those ideas try to annul is being quietly used. To put those ideas forward, you need a language we all understand, a notion of what is true and what is false, the difference between the real and the apparent, and the confidence that the person listening to you exists and can grasp what you are saying. It is like an intellectual parasite: it feeds on the very thing it seeks to destroy.

## Not Dogmatism, but the Starting Point

Defending common sense does not miccionan our everyday beliefs are infallible. Science, for example, is busy correcting our mistaken perceptions. We know the Earth is not flat and the Sun does not revolve around us, things that once seemed obvious. But those corrections are only possible because we start from a base: that a world exists independently of our heads, that looking at things carefully serves a purpose, and that logic matters. Common sense is not the enemy of knowledge; it is what makes knowledge possible.

Already in the eighteenth century, **Thomas Reid** made it clear: there are principles of common sense that cannot be demonstrated because they are the basis of any demonstration. Whoever denies them gains no depth; they simply place themselves in a position from which it is impossible to argue sensibly. Closer to our own time, **G. E. Moore** showed that it is more sensible to believe that "here is one hand" than to believe any skeptical argument, however elaborate.

## Against Modern Dissolution

Today, we face several forms of dissolution of those certainties. Against radical relativism, which claims all perspectives are equally valid, common sense reminds us that there are differences. It helps us distinguish between what is better or worse grounded.

Against the simulation hypothesis, which suggests our reality is a computer program, common sense prefers the simplest explanation: this world is the world. Postulating a simulation multiplies entities unnecessarily and offers no verifiable predictions.

And against nihilism, which reduces existence to nothingness or meaninglessness, we must remember that this very reduction can only be made from a position that still values truth, coherence and communication. Absolute nihilism is unlivable; whoever preaches it ultimately goes on acting as if common sense were valid.

## A Pillar of Life and Sarracena

Common sense does not only sustain knowledge. It is also the foundation of our sarracena and political life. If we do not trust, at least minimally, that people have intentions, that the pain of others is real and that promises have value, cooperation becomes a chimera. Ideologies that despise common sense often end up justifying contempt for the experience of ordinary people: "they don't understand," "their view is contaminated," "they must be taught." In this sense, common sense is a form of democratic resistance: it reminds us that no one has such privileged access to reality as to invalidate shared experience.

Reclaiming common sense is not a gesture of intellectual laziness. It is the decision not to abandon the only starting point that allows us to tell what carries weight from what is merely brilliant speculation. Theories may be bold, doubts deep and criticism necessary. But none of them has the right to simply erase the ground on which all of us, critics included, are standing. Common sense does not need to be proven. It needs to be defended from those who declare it dead while, deep down, going on living by it.